Ginny doesn’t remember Malfoy being so tall.

She hasn’t spoken to him in years, not since the first term of her sixth year of Hogwarts, months before Voldemort’s defeat. During detentions with the Carrows, Alecto Carrow would sometimes command Malfoy to restrain Ginny while she was being punished, but she was understandably more focused on the pain of the Cruciatus than his height back then.

She does remember the feel of his fingers encircling her wrists and how tightly he’d held onto her. His grip had disgusted her, frightened her, because it meant she couldn’t dodge the blast of the Unforgivable aimed at her. She also remembers his breath against the top of her head, heavy and hot with his own fear. That fear made more sense if he was tall. He always held her from behind, holding her arms out to the sides to make her a larger target, but if Malfoy’s height exceeded her own, he became a target, too. The Carrows could have missed her and hit Malfoy instead.

These are dark thoughts to have while trapped underneath enchanted mistletoe, but it’s the first place Ginny’s mind wanders when she tries to pass Malfoy in the Atrium and jolts to a stop, as if someone had grabbed her from behind by the waist. She spins around, but Malfoy is two steps away and has a frustrated expression on his face. His hands are nowhere near her body.

He glances up, and Ginny mimics him, horror dawning at the sight of the mistletoe hanging in midair. A festive trap. Ginny seethes.

Ever since Gilderoy Lockhart’s release from the Janus Thickey Ward, he’s wreaked havoc as a custodian in the Magical Maintenance Department of the Ministry. His memories had never been recovered, but the Healers had argued he deserved a new chance at a life outside of the hospital even without them. Magical mistletoe was exactly Lockhart’s MO. He had also been responsible for snow flurries in the lifts, magical windows that depicted the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the offices of people who “needed a little cheer,” singing valentines, and many more annoying stunts. For someone who had no memory of his former life, he channeled his former passion for obnoxious forms of entertainment with suspicious accuracy.

Malfoy takes a step and grunts when his knee hits a solid, invisible object.

Ginny lifts her arm and gasps when she, too, encounters some sort of barrier that prevents her from leaving him.

They look at each other for the first time since those detentions at Hogwarts. It’s not the first time Ginny has looked at him, however. Malfoy had not returned to Hogwarts after the war and instead had taken a gap year before taking some secret position at the Ministry. No one knew exactly what he did. Some thought he was an Unspeakable, but he didn’t wear the telltale robes of the Department of Mysteries. Some thought he was the Minister’s personal adviser, utilized for some illicit business the public didn’t know about. Others thought he wasn’t employed at all and only walked around the Ministry with an important air so people wouldn’t forget about him.

Whatever his business at the Ministry, Ginny had spotted him around the building on various occasions. Once she’d noticed him the first time, she began noticing him more, until some subconscious part of her seemed attuned to his presence. She always sensed when he was near, and when she looked up, her gaze always landed on him perfectly. This was the first time he’d ever looked back at her, though.

“What a bloody mess,” he says under his breath.

Ginny bristles. “This isn’t my fault.”

“Did I say it was?” he snaps back.

Ginny’s lips press together to keep herself from snarling at him in return. “What do we do now? I’m supposed to be meeting with Harry.” She glances at her watch with a frown. “I was running late, but now I’m definitely late.”

“We wouldn’t want to inconvenience Potter, would we?”

Ginny’s glare is cutting. “I’m the one who’s inconvenienced. I have four performance evaluations to complete, and he’s weasled out of his for over a week. If we don’t complete it today, we’ll have to reschedule for two weeks from now and I have too much to do already without having to pencil in another unnecessary meeting.”

Malfoy’s sneer dissolves into something a little more interested. “Performance evaluations? They put you in charge of people?”

Ginny takes a little step closer and pecks Malfoy’s chest with a blunt finger. “For someone who spends so much time at the Ministry, you don’t know anything about it. I’m the Head of the Auror Office, and I’m too busy to stay trapped here with you.”

His posture straightens at that, his expression turning shrewd. Ginny is now fully aware of how close the enchantment requires them to be to each other and how large Malfoy really is. The top of her head barely meets his shoulder blades. The scrawny, frightened 17-year-old who used to restrain her in detention has filled out to nearly twice his former size. He’s wide enough, muscles thick enough, for Ginny to wonder how it would feel if he wrapped his arms around her and squeezed. Rather nice, she thinks. It’s been awhile since anyone embraced her to her satisfaction.

She shakes her head, trying to dislodge those dangerous thoughts, those wild feelings. This is a man who held her still while Death Eaters cast Unforgivables at her. This is an attempted murderer. This is a man who chose the side of bigotry and blood supremacy over basic human decency. Maybe that had been ten years ago, but did people change that much, even in a whole decade?

“What do you do, anyway?” Ginny asks, her thoughts circling around to general suspicion.

Malfoy takes a step closer to her, and their chests nearly meet. If either of them take a deep breath, they’ll be touching. He lowers his head and Ginny instinctively tilts her chin up to better reach him.

“We missed our opportunity to escape, and now we have an audience,” he says instead of answering her question.

His breath is soft against her cheek and her ear. Warm. His voice sends a shiver down her spine. It takes several moments for Ginny to look around them, and then she scowls even as her face heats up. A crowd has indeed gathered. Several people are tittering and pointing in amusement. Some look scandalized. All of them are curious to see what she and the infamously mythical Malfoy will do.

Her head snaps back to him. “You know what we have to do.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re willing?” she says skeptically.

“Oh yes.”

The skepticism blooms into disbelief, and the heat that rose up to Ginny’s face when she noticed their audience spreads further. Her entire body is warm now, bordering on hot. Her skin erupts in goosebumps and feels so sensitive, she’s aware of all the fabric draping her body, as if weights had been sewn into the hem of her robes.

“Do it, then.” The words come out breathlessly. They sound like a whisper between them, a secret meant only for his ears, though she didn’t intend for them to sound that way.

Malfoy takes one more step so that the toes of their shoes touch. It’s strangely intimate though Ginny can’t feel it. But not as intimate as when he grasps the sides of her waist and pulls her closer. Chest to chest. Breath to breath.

It seems like he has to bend down so far to reach her, so Ginny rises onto her tip-toes to help him. The sudden movement makes their mouths collide painfully, lips a little bruised, teeth stinging. But Ginny only takes a moment to recover before she’s got her fingers buried in the nape of his neck to tug him back down to her. He’s so tall, her body bows toward him, and his hands at her waist slide around to her back, pressing her fully against him as his mouth devours hers in an unnecessarily intimate kiss.

Ginny doesn’t think it’s unnecessary, though. She’s thinking that his arms feel just as good as she hoped they would—better, even—especially when she grunts into his mouth and he squeezes her even tighter, exactly the way she loves. She’s thinking that his mouth is purposeful, almost as if he’d noticed her around the Ministry, too, and wondered how she’d feel in his arms….

She doesn’t think any more after that until a loud burst of hoots and cheering interrupts the kiss, sending them spinning away from each other at the same time, the enchantment broken.

Ginny’s face is beet red as she meets the eyes of their audience and then turns back to Malfoy, whose own cheeks are rather pink and whose eyes are unmistakably glassy. They’re both panting, trying to reclaim their breath, and something inside Ginny breaks apart and melds back together.

Malfoy. Hmm. Maybe?

Yes.

He departs without a word, and Ginny is too stunned to follow.

“Ginny?”

She turns and Harry is at her side, his brows drawn together in concern or consternation, she’s not sure which. “I came looking for you when you didn’t show up for our meeting. Are you alright?” He tacks the question on at the end most likely because of the dazed expression on Ginny’s face.

She waves him off and straightens her robes. “No need to meet anymore. You passed your evaluation with flying colors. Don’t bother me for the rest of the day.”

She nearly runs back to Auror Headquarters, partially afraid she’ll run into Malfoy again but mostly hoping for it. Once she’s fully ensconced inside her office, she takes a seat behind her desk, one hand coming up to mindlessly stroke her lips.

She realizes she’s lost track of time reliving her memories of the kiss when a knock at her door signals her next appointment.

Even as she goes through the motions of meeting after meeting, keeping her mind engaged with Auror matters, there’s a tiny part of her brain that is fixated on Malfoy.

Wondering how she can become trapped under the mistletoe with him again.

Since his encounter with enchanted mistletoe in the Atrium of the Ministry a few days ago, Draco has made it a point to learn everything he can about Ginny Weasley. She’d accused him of knowing nothing about the Ministry of Magic despite his extended presence there, and she’d been right.

Draco’s job is very important, but it doesn’t require much knowledge or many skills, so he has never bothered to learn the composition of each department or identify changes of power.

Deep in the Department of Mysteries, an office connects the Time and Thought Chambers. It’s where Memory is studied and also houses copies of every document drafted inside or sent to the Ministry of Magic. Contracts, memos, newsletters, personal correspondence, shopping and to-do lists—if it’s written on parchment, a magical copy is immediately and magically archived in the Department of Mysteries. Draco’s job is to monitor the Archive and hand-deliver archival requests to the Minister of Magic, the only person with clearance to make requests from the Archive.

After the mistletoe incident, Draco scoured the Archive for any mention of Ginny Weasley. He found a birth certificate, Hogwarts rosters from all eight years she attended school, a letter sent to the Ministry by Professor McGonagall to inform the Minister of Weasley’s abduction into the Chamber of Secrets. Another letter informing the Minister of her safe retrieval. A memo describing Weasley’s actions and injuries in the battle that took place inside the Department of Mysteries. OWL scores, NEWT scores, a certificate of completion upon leaving Hogwarts. An employment contract when she was hired as an Auror. Another when she was promoted to Head of the Auror Department. (He sees that she is the youngest to lead the department in Ministry history, but it appears she received the job when several members of the department were arrested for corruption and Potter turned down the opportunity.)

He had devoured as much of her life story as he could, and all the while, he had wondered why it mattered to him.

They’d kissed. It was a spectacular kiss, but they’d been forced into it and it didn’t mean anything. That doesn’t mean Draco doesn’t want to do it again.

A blank piece of parchment on top of one of the stacks that clutter the floor around his desk begins to fill with words, and Draco pauses his perusal of Weasley’s promotion contract to watch the words scribble themselves across the page. As soon as the words rest, Draco turns to the rows and rows of filing cabinets that fill the room and begins the tedious process of interpreting the vague request to find some information that might be useful to the Minister.

Hours later, he emerges from the Archive and grabs a lift. The lift stops one floor up at the Atrium to retrieve new passengers, and Draco’s vision tunnels when the doors open. Ginny Weasley has just stepped out of a Floo and turns toward the security gates. A flash of her red hair peeks between the bars of the gates, enticing him with its brightness.

The grill begins to close, and before he can second guess himself, Draco shoves his way out of the full lift. He makes a beeline for Weasley to meet her on his side of the security gate.

She glances up as her wand is returned to her by the attendant, but she noticeably freezes when she spots Draco, only feet away. Then, as if as drawn to him as he is to her, she slowly approaches him.

The people around them give them a wide berth, as if sensing they would prefer to be alone. With the illusion of privacy, they keep their voices low and intimate.

“You ran away from our last encounter,” Weasley says, a smile trembling at the corners of her lips. As though she would prefer to scowl but can’t bring herself to.

“I didn’t fancy being hexed by Potter.”

“Harry is a non-issue,” she says, scowling now. Hmm, she really doesn’t like being associated with Potter. This pleases him more than it should. Or maybe just as much as it should…. Why shouldn’t Draco be glad that she wants nothing to do with Potter anymore?

She tilts her chin up a little higher, and Draco realizes how small she is, how far she has to crane her neck to meet his eyes. This feels familiar in some ways and brand new in others. Once upon a time, he’d restrained her from behind while the Carrows had thrown Unforgivables at her. She’d seemed such an impossibly small target back then, when Draco had also been in the line of fire. In that way, her size feels intimately familiar. But she faces him now, meets his eye, the opposite position she’d held in her detention days, and the experience is new, thrilling, and terrifying all at once to have those eyes on him.

This is a woman who was abducted by Salazar Slytherin’s monster and saw the inside of the Chamber of Secrets. This is a woman who led a rebellion when Potter wasn’t around to lead it for her. This is the youngest leader of the Aurors in history, and perhaps she got the job because there hadn’t been anyone else with more experience to take it, but all the reports he’d read in the Archive suggested she’d met the challenge and exceeded expectations.

She is a force to be reckoned with, and she wants nothing to do with Potter. Instead, she’s staring at Draco, almost smiling at Draco, as if she, too, wants to repeat their kiss from several days ago.

“By choice?” Draco asks, wanting to hear her say the words.

“Hmm?”

“Is Potter a non-issue by choice? Was there a choice?”

Her eyes glitter with calculation. Her lips purse in thought. Draco measures his breaths and sculpts his expression into mild curiosity, trying to hide how much he needs to know the answer. But inside his chest, his heart pounds against his ribs in anticipation.

“Yes, by choice,” Weasley says. “My choice.”

“Before or after you became the youngest Head of the Auror Department?”

Her eyes narrow. “You asked about me.”

“No,” he answers truthfully, his lips thinning into a smug smile.

“You did someresearch.”

“Some,” he agrees.

During their back and forth, they draw closer together. Close enough that if Draco shifts his stance slightly, their fingers will brush. Close enough that if he only lowers his head, he could kiss her again. The top of her head, her forehead, her cheek, her mouth. Wherever he wants, he could do it.

“Before.”

“Hmm?” Draco asks.

Her grin strengthens, goes from trembly to sincere. “Harry became a non-issue long before I became the head of the department.”

Back in their school days, he had loved competing with Potter. Nothing had brought him as much joy as when Draco triumphed over him, rare as those moments had been. But Draco had grown up, and in the time it had taken him to do that, he’d finally learned that some people are winners and some are losers. In any competition between Draco and Potter, Draco usually came out the loser, so it was better not to compete at all.

He’s glad he won’t have to compete with Potter for her.

At this point, there is no further distance to cover. If they move any closer, they’ll be in each other’s arms.

Draco wonders whether this new attraction to Weasley is natural or a by-product of the enchanted mistletoe lingering all these days later. Something isn’t right about his fascination, about the flush in his cheeks, about his rapidly beating heart. What if he’s under the effects of magical mistletoe right now?

He looks up, halfway expecting to see the blasted plant hanging there, and then he freezes.

The blasted plant is hanging there!

Weasley looks up, too, and then groans. “Oh no….”

The bubble that he and Weasley had found themselves in now makes sense. It was caused by the people passing by avoiding the mistletoe, and Draco and Weasley had walked right into it.

Draco frowns, uncertain of the mood he’d sensed when she’d passed through the security gates. “Don’t pretend you don’t want to kiss me. I felt how you reacted last time. I see the way you’re looking at me now.”

“It’s not that,” she says, her voice low. “I don’t like not having a choice. I don’t like not being in control.”

A quiet, surprised breath escapes Draco’s mouth. Heat begins to consume him at the idea of Weasley being in control. After his initial physical reaction to her explanation, Draco understands her concern. Not having a choice—it’s an evil Draco experienced during the war, and it’s an evil he never wants to repeat.

But they do have a choice now. They can choose to kiss, or they can ask a bystander to alert the Magical Maintenance crew to free them. They still have a choice.

Draco places his hands on her hips and holds her against him. They are so close, he hears every stutter of her breath, he feels it against his heart, penetrating through his clothes, through skin and muscle and bone. She’s so small it makes him want to be careful with her, so when he lowers his head, he plants an equally small, gentle kiss against her lips. It’s a fleeting kiss, testing the waters, tasting them, trying to get a sense of whether her presumed lack of choice will deter her from deepening it.

It doesn’t.

Her response is immediate as she reaches up and takes his lips by force.

For a moment, he’s shocked by her fervor, but it’s only a momentary lapse. He’s as invested as she is, as hungry as she is, and he pours all of the attraction he’s felt over the last several days, all the want and yearning, into her.

It’s hot, it’s wet, it’s completely inappropriate for the workplace, especially for the entrance of the Ministry where so many people arrive and depart. But Draco doesn’t care. He only cares about the scent of her hair in his nose, the taste of her tongue against his, her greedy hands clutching his back, her all-encompassing warmth.

When it ends, he’s filled with regret, but there’s something in her eyes that says this second kiss won’t be their last. Maybe next time they won’t wait to get trapped under enchanted mistletoe again.

As long as they are both willing, Draco will make sure they have plenty of opportunities in the future for more kissing.

It will always be their choice.